The district in the Rio Grande Valley immediately agreed with activists who said the books were “filthy and evil.”

Conservative activists, led by a local pastor and outspoken Israel advocate, pushed the district, Mission CISD, to excise books mostly about gender, sexuality and race. Their demands represented an extreme version of a nationwide culture war over books that has played out in recent years — and ensnared a number of books with Jewish themes.

In Mission, the long list of books on the chopping block includes a recent illustrated adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary; both volumes of Art Spiegelman’s Holocaust graphic memoir “Maus”; “The Fixer,” Bernard Malamud’s novel about a historical instance of antisemitic blood libel; and “Kasher in the Rye,” a ribald memoir by Jewish comedian Moshe Kasher.

  • BuckFigotstheThirdEnglish
    2•5 months ago

    Sounds straight up delusional and seems like people who believe that sort of stuff and then act on it should be institutionalized for the safety of our fellow citizens.

    Aren’t most people who believe in invisible people and talk to thin air considered crazy?

    • @[email protected]English
      1•5 months ago

      I think that’s a little ableist and a lot reductionist, ignoring the people creating these ideas and institutions and enforcing them (including by historically and still in different forms today actually institutionalising people that speak against them), because they didn’t come out of thin air, and the money and power those people have definitely isn’t imaginary.

      Don’t blame people grasping at straws for comfort in this shitty shitty world, blame those manipulating and exploiting them for profit and power.